Viking Wolf (Vikingulven) is a nordic supernatural thriller that follows the life of a teenager, Thale Berg. After moving to a small town, she witnesses a vicious animal attack that kills her classmate. Thale gets bitten in the process and starts experiencing bizarre changes in herself.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Viking Wolf opens with a small dive into the past. The onscreen text explains that in 1050, a Viking chieftain named Gudbrand the Grim sailed to Normandy with 20 ships.
While plundering an abbey there, they discovered a secret room and broke into it despite pleas from the monks. Inside, they found a tiny but vicious dog and decided to bring it back to Norway.
The Vikings didn’t realize that they had unleashed a hound of hell and paid the price. The beast killed everyone on board and made its way into the Nordic woods as the ship reached ashore.
The plot then switches to the present day and introduces Thale, an unassuming 17-year-old who lives with her mother Liv, deaf sister Jenny, and stepfather Arthur.
She receives a text from one of her classmates, Jonas, and sneaks out to meet him. Thale meets Jonas and a few other kids from her school in the woods. It is revealed that she moved to this small town called Nybo from Oslo.
As Thale talks to Jonas, they are interrupted by a girl named Elin Gran. She steals Jonas away to talk in private and Thale decides to walk back. Night falls, and Thale notices Jonas and Elin talking near the woods.
She decides to continue walking but hears a scream. Upon turning, Thale sees Elin wounded and goes to help her. Jonas is also bleeding nearby, and this is when disaster strikes.
An unknown beast bites Thale and drags Elin away. The authorities soon take over the scene, and Liv, who is a police officer, also shows up. The police send out a search party for Elin, who is revealed to be the mayor’s daughter.
The next day, Thale starts having weird visions and begins to feel peculiar. Meanwhile, the cops interrogate all the kids who were in the woods and conclude that the attacker was a wolf. They even retrieve a claw from the scene.
Thale has a slight falling out with her mother as she despises her for moving to this town after her father’s death. She believes that Liv doesn’t even miss him as she is already with Arthur.
Elin is found dead and her body is recovered from the woods. The autopsy reveals shocking injuries and the coroner mentions that no ordinary wolf is capable of such a feat.
Liv calls for an expert from the Norweigan School of Veterinary Science to assess Elin’s body and Thale’s visions worsen. The next day, a man named Lars Broden comes to see Liv and mentions the term lycanthrope.
He claims that the beast they hunt is a werewolf, and he has been after it his entire life. Liv doesn’t believe him, and Lars respectfully leaves stating that he’ll be at the hunting grounds should they need his help later. However, he leaves some silver bullets with her.
Meanwhile, the veterinarian, Willaim, arrives and examines Elin’s body. He confirms that the attacker was a wolf but the claw that was found is unusually large. With this news, a hunting party is formed, and they set out to search for the animal.
Viking Wolf ending explained in detail:
What happens on the hunt?
Liv, along with sheriff Eilert, and a few hunters head into the woods. They discover a headless corpse of an asylum seeker and Liv orders a few of them to guard it.
Meanwhile, their sniffer dog picks up a scent, and they follow it to an abandoned air shaft from an old copper mine. Liv goes inside to investigate, and the ones outside are ripped apart by a huge wolf.
The beast almost kills Liv, but she shoots it down with the silver bullet. Eilert survives but is non-responsive. He is admitted to the hospital with bite wounds.
When William examines the wolf’s corpse, he notices a human nail protruding from the place where it lost its claw. Liv is shocked and takes the veterinarian to see Lars.
The old man explains that werewolves are not humanoid wolves. The evil that the Vikings brought was a different and vicious species of animal, and it carries a curse.
He further mentions that if a person is bitten, they will experience a gradual transformation and turn into a demonic wolf. The only way to end the curse is to kill the last remaining werewolf before it bites and transforms someone else.
Does Thale turn into a werewolf?
As Liv works on solving the case, Thale’s situation worsens. She hangs out with Jonas but often finds herself having terrifying visions and feels nauseous most of the time.
She even has an episode at school and runs away. One night, while hanging out with Jonas, Thale looks at the moon and starts transforming. She wakes up in her garage the next day in human form but with sharp teeth.
Realizing she attacked and killed Jonas, Thale decides to leave town. By now, her facial features turn animal-like. She visits the police station to take a look at her mom from a distance and boards a bus to Oslo.
Elsewhere, William tells Liv that the wolf that killed Jonas was smaller. He eventually gets a DNA test result for the previously killed beast and finds it to be exactly like a human being’s DNA.
Does Thale survive?
As the bus reaches the Nybo tunnel, Thale transforms again and massacres the passengers. Liv is tasked with investigating, and William arrives on the scene as well.
Liv finds Thale’s watch inside the wrecked bus as the veterinarian tells her about the human DNA. She finally deciphers that the wolf is her daughter. Elsewhere, Lars kills the sheriff inside the hospital as he is bitten as well.
Thale, in her wolf form, reaches her house and is about to attack Jenny. However, seeing her sister makes the beast stop in her tracks. Arthur attacks the wolf with a lamp and escapes with Jenny.
The beast chases after them, and Arthur is revealed to be injured. Due to losing excessive blood, he crashes the car near a pub full of people. Thale arrives and starts killing everyone in sight.
Lars shows up to finish the curse, but Thale gets the better of him too. Fortunately, Liv and William arrive and save Jenny from being devoured. They face off against the wolf and get cornered.
Jenny comes to the rescue and stabs her sister’s beast form with a tranquilizer dart. The next day, Liv apologizes to the unconscious wolf, that was once her daughter, and prepares to shoot it with a silver bullet.
The scene changes and we see Liv driving back home. She goes into her room and places the silver bullet in front of Thale’s picture. The film ends on a cliffhanger and doesn’t reveal if Liv shot the wolf.
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